19 July 2017 — 1745 mdt
Defending Obamacare is not enough —
we must replace it with American Care
Nothing has more lives than a bad idea promoted by bad people. As long as bad people — that is, Republicans — control Congress and the Presidency, bills to repeal and/or gut Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act, will continue to be introduced, in many cases put to a vote, and in some cases, passed by at least one house of Congress. Meanwhile, the executive branch will do everything in its power, and possibly beyond its legal power, to sabotage the ACA.
Bearing that in mind, don’t celebrate the demise of McConnell’s latest bill. Don’t even think of heaving a sigh of relief. The demise is only temporary. The GOP’s determination to deprive the middle class and the poor of decent health insurance will continue forever.
Therefore, the resistance must continue forever. Full force. Relentlessly. Without quarter.
But resistance alone is not enough.
The ACA is better than the status quo ante. Ergo, it must be defended. But it leaves millions uninsured, and blesses deductibles so large that for many the risk of a medical bankruptcy remains frighteningly high. It does not provide equal protection under the law.
Progressives must begin making the case — and making it fortissimo — for what I call American Care: an everyone covered for everything federal single-payer system financed by progressive taxes.
American Care will be opposed by the Wall Street wing of the Democratic Party, the wing that sold its soul to, and made its peace with, the private health insurance industry (one of the most parasitic, most economically worthless, most morally degenerate, industries the world has ever known). Who can forget the reckless, dishonest, morally depraved, attack on Bernie Sanders’ single-payer proposal made by Hillary Clinton’s campaign? And according to Pete Talbot at The Montana Post (the former Intelligent Discontent), Jon Tester, like Max Baucus before him, wants single-payer off the table:
… Sen. Jon Tester recently held an impromptu meeting with Missoula Democrats, basically firing up his base. Health care was a heady topic, and an audience member asked about advancing a single-payer plan. Tester responded that keeping the ACA (Obamacare) in tact was a big enough battle — single payer was off the table.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could play offense instead of defense? … [Highlighting by Flathead Memo.]
Thank you, Sen. Tester, for defending the ACA. But don’t be a Wall Street Democrat. Your resistance to, and dissing of, the most economically efficient, and the only truly just, health care system, is shameful, embarrassing, and wrong.